, Plan Offered by Byrne

TRENTON — Governor Byrne has finally entered the legislative controversy over Congressional redistricting. At a meeting with the state's Representatives in Washington last week, be offered a compromise to a plan pro?? by State Senator James P. Dugan, Democrat of Hudson County and his party's state chairman.

Most of few Jersey's 15 Representatives have been opposed to the Dugan plan, which is designed to create politically safe, predomitantly white new district for presentative Peter W. Rodino Jr. Mr. Rodino, a Democrat, currently represents the 10th District in Newark, an overwhelmingly black one.

The Dugan proposal would carve out a new district composed of blue‐collar communities in northern Essex County and in parts of Hudson, Passaic and Bergen Counties, leaving the 10th District vacant and thus earmarked for New Jersey's first black member of Congress.

However, to achieve a shift for Mr. Rodin, other incumbent Representatives would face wholesale revisions of their own districts.

For example, Representative Andrew Maguire, a freshman Democrat who was elected last November in the Seventh District (western Bergen County), would see his constituency virtually decimated and his home town ot Ridgewood transferred into the Eighth District in Passaic County. That district is now represented by Robert A. Roe, also a Democrat.

Moreover, the Dugan plan would place Representatives Helen S. Meyner, a Democrat, and Millicent Fenwick, a Republican, in the same district.

For these reasons and because Incumbent Representatives generally oppose any redistricting plan that tends to hurt them politically, the Dugan proposal has been under sharp attack by a majority of Democrats and Republican incumbents.

The disputes not only has split the Legislature, but it also has created considerable bitterness in the Congressional delegation. For example, Representative Frank Thompson Jr., a Democrat of Mercer County, has accused Mr. Rodino of “making a deal” with Senator Dugan in an effort to save his (Mr. Rodino's) political tuture

In response, Mr. Rodino denied any deal.

Twice last week, Mr. Byrne met with New Jersey's Representatives in Washington and told them that the Dugan plan was a “practical reality” that they had to face. The proposal already has been approved by the State Senate, and Senator Dugan is attempting to get it released from the Assembly Judiciary Committee for a final legislative vote in that house.

Wholesale Revisions

But the Governor then offered what he said was an alternative proposal.

Instead of shifting Mr. Rodino north, Mr. Byrne's revised plan would create a new district that would extend from Bergen Country south into Union County. And although it would not displace any incumbent Representative, it would probably mean the political demise of Representative Matthew J. Rinaldo, a Republican. This is because Hillside, in which Mr. Rinaldo lives, would be included in several other Union County suburbs in the new black district in Newark that would be created by Mr. Rodino's departure.

The compromise plan also would move Representative Joseph G. Minish's 11th District in Essex County further west into Morris County suburbs, a shift that Mr. Minish, a Democrat, opposes.

The new Rodino district in the compromise proposal would include Ridgefield Park in Bergen County, then snake down to the predominantly white parts of Newark, including Mr. Rodino's present North Word constituency. It also would embrace Elizabeth and Linden in Union County.

According to informed Democratic officials, the alternative plan was, in part, put forward by State Senator Matthew Feldman, the Democratic Majority Leader from Bergen County.